ERC to introduce evaluation panel on the fundamentals of AI

29 September 2026
Artificial intelligence (AI) has developed into a major and rapidly expanding area of computer science, with AI-related ERC project proposals representing a significant share of submissions to the current Computer Science evaluation panel (PE6).
New ERC panel on the fundamentals of AI
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To reflect this evolution and ensure that the growing volume of AI research proposals is evaluated in a dedicated scientific context, a new thematic evaluation panel on Fundamentals of AI (PE12) will be established, starting from the 2028 ERC calls under the EU’s future R&I framework programme.

The new panel will cover fundamental and basic research aimed at advancing the foundations, methods, and theories of artificial intelligence - rather than applications of AI in specific domains, which can be submitted to other panels.  

The new PE12 scope will include machine learning, reasoning, intelligent and autonomous systems, computer vision, natural language processing, generative and multimodal AI, and its mathematical and statistical foundations.

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